41 children have drowned in Collier County since 2000, far too many according to fire officials.
Candles were lit Friday night at Vanderbilt Beach to remember them.
"I remember getting a phone call and it just dropped me to my knees," said Paul DeMello. "I remember hearing their mom's screams on the other side of the phone, it was the worst day of my life."
That was 7 years ago, when DeMello's twin 1-year-old sons Christian and Joshua drowned in a residential pool.
"Now that they are gone, they are probably touching more lives than they would have if they'd be here."
Paul hopes no parent ever has to go through this kind of pain. so he teamed up with NCH and started the Tot Walk Vigil, now in its 4th year.
The twilight beach vigil is a chance for survivors to remember young drowning victims in Collier County.
In many of these cases, the parent took their eyes of the child for a brief moment.
"Whether they go to the kitchen to get a snack, whether they go to the bathroom to get a towel," said North Collier Fire Chief George Aguilera.
State law already requires some sort of barrier around your pool, but Aguilera says alarms next to a pool could save lives.
"I think if they would have had that extra alarm, then they would have had the audible notification that something hit the water."
DeMello says the pain of losing his twin sons hasn't gone away, but it's easier to cope by helping others get through their grief.
"There's something about helping another human being, you kind of help your self, it's therapeutic."
Fire officials encourage parents to learn CPR, it's a brief and relatively inexpensive course.
